


don’t you know that i’ll always be true?

by symphony7inAmajor



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fairy Tale Curses, First Kiss, Frogs, M/M, True Love's Kiss, do you think this counts as crack treated seriously.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphony7inAmajor/pseuds/symphony7inAmajor
Summary: Five times Sean has to kiss the frog, and the one time he gets to do it right.(maybe this whole curse business isn't so bad after all)





	don’t you know that i’ll always be true?

**Author's Note:**

> i have never written bruins fic before so hopefully this isn't too ooc or anything. then again hockey men is the same... projection all the way down. 
> 
> basic premise: danton turns into frog. sean kisses frog and danton comes back.
> 
> title from "in-a-gadda-da-vida" by iron butterfly

1.

The first of the _ incidents, _as Sean grows to think of them as, happens on a night like any other.

A few of the guys decide to go to a bar, which, after a road game on a long trip, is not always the most popular choice. Only some of the younger guys are out, sitting around a table in a shadowy corner. Hiding in case any fans of the vanquished team happen to come along.

Unlikely. 

Sean is taking tiny sips of some shitty craft beer, listening absently to Matt talk about this new TV show he’s watching. He blinks slowly, watching a woman at the bar pull up her skirt to show off a snake tattoo on her thigh.

The snake’s tongue flicks in and out, yellow eyes darting around the room.

Someone jostles against his shoulder and he snaps his eyes back to his beer, taking a long swallow.

“Hot,” Jake says, right in his ear. Sean tries very hard not to spill his beer all over the front of his shirt. “Imagine trying to fuck when somebody has, like, a whole animal on their body, though. It’d just be watching you the whole time.” Jake sounds like he’s speaking from experience.

“I don’t want to sleep with her, come on,” Sean says, pushing Jake back into his own chair. Jake wobbles a little. He’s probably too drunk. “The tattoo is cool, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” Jake says suspiciously.

“Uh,” says Sean. He looks around for somebody to save him from this conversation, then he notices one of the chairs is empty. “Hey, where’d Dan go?” he asks.

The guys look around.

“Maybe he just went to the bathroom, buddy,” Matt says mildly. “No need to be so codependent.”

“I didn’t see him leave, that’s all.” Sean shrugs, brushing it off.

When it’s been five minutes and Danton still isn’t back, Sean starts to feel worried. 

“Dude, maybe he picked up and went home with somebody, would you chill?” Jake looks about two seconds away from sliding out of his chair and onto the floor. Sean decides that getting pissed at the drunk guy would really help no one, and he bites back his retort when he sees Danton’s phone still on the table. 

“You think he’d leave his phone behind?” Sean leans over the table and picks it up. “Not likely.”

_ Now _ the guys start to look concerned.

Sean is about to sit back into his chair when he hears something unusual over the hum of the bar. He leans back and walks around the table to pull out the chair Danton had been sitting in. 

When he sees what’s occupying it now, he almost passes out.

“Guys,” he says, voice embarrassingly squeaky, “Danton—he’s—there’s a—"

“Holy shit,” Chucky says loudly, “that’s a frog.”

Sitting in the middle of the chair is a small, mottled green frog. It—he? _ Is _ it Danton? Sean feels very far out of his league. 

Immediately, the guys gather around the chair, each of them wanting to get a look at frog-Danton.

“Wow,” Jake says. “Y’can really see the rese—re—similarity.”

“We gotta get him back to the hotel,” Chucky says. “What if he turns back and he’s _ naked?” _

“We do not need that kind of publicity,” Matt agrees, then everyone turns to look and Sean. 

“Um,” says Sean, “what.”

“Pick him up!” Matt says, bossily. “You’re, you know, besties. He’ll let you.”

“First of all, we don’t even know if that frog is Danton,” Sean starts, but when he looks back at the frog, the frog is giving him a look that Sean _ recognizes. _

_ Please get me out of here, _says the frog, with its soulful eyes.

“Ugh,” says Sean, and picks up the frog. 

It’s wriggly and slippery, but Sean manages to get it into a pocket and zip it up. He slips Danton’s phone into another pocket, then they get the hell out of there. 

Everyone communes back in Sean’s room. The frog is sitting peacefully on top of a pillow.

“I’m going to be real,” Matt says finally. “I have no idea how to undo hexes like this.”

“I thought that was, like, your mom’s _ job,” _Sean says. “That’s why I asked you to come!”

“Okay, well _ I _ don’t have any magic.” Matt scowls. “I can’t undo magic without magic. I never thought it’d be _ relevant.” _

“Does _ anyone _ have any ideas?” Sean asks. He gets a bunch of blank looks in response. 

“Nobody’s been turned into a frog since, like, the Middle Ages,” Chucky says. “It’s kind of old fashioned.”

Everyone sits in silence and looks at their frog-shaped teammate. 

“I have _ some _magic,” Sean admits once the quiet starts wearing on him too much. “Just a tiny bit, though, I’ve never done anything deliberate with it. I wouldn’t know how to undo a hex.”

Matt scoops up the frog and places him in Sean’s hand. 

“You gotta kiss it, bro,” he says.

“Uh,” Sean says. “Excuse me.”

“That’s how some frog people got turned back in the old times,” Chucky agrees. “I dunno if it’d work, but it can’t hurt to try.”

_ “I _ might get hurt!” Sean argues. “What if I get a weird frog disease? What if _ I _ turn into a frog?” He frowns. “Why can’t one of _ you _do it.”

“Besties,” Matt and Chucky say in unison. 

Sean groans. He looks at the frog. It seems, on all levels, a simple frog. He looks back at his teammates.

“If I turn into a frog, I want it on record that it was your fault,” Sean says, addressing all of them. They look offended, but before they can answer, Sean leans down and presses his lips to the top of the frog’s head.

Nothing happens. 

“Maybe it has to be on the lips,” says Chucky. 

“Dumbass,” Jake says, “frogs don’t have lips.”

Then the frog starts to glow. 

Sean drops it onto the sheets, probably too abruptly, and jumps backwards. 

Everyone watches, holding their breath, as the frog glows brighter. Eventually, the light is too bright to look at and Sean covers his eyes. When it fades, Danton is sitting on the bed, completely naked. 

“Um,” he says. “What happened?”

Then he passes out. 

2.

After that, Sean figures that’ll be the end of it. The hex is undone, Danton suffered no ill effects, and they’re back home. Everything is back to normal. 

Mostly. 

Unfortunately, Sean can’t forget that to undo the hex, he had to kiss Danton. And yeah, Danton was a frog at the time and doesn’t remember much from the experience, but it was technically still Danton. After Danton woke up, the guys were only too keen to tell him exactly how he’d come back. 

Danton had seemed cool with it—disappointingly cool, even. Sean might’ve been hoping (stupidly, naively) for Danton to declare how he was disappointed that it wasn’t a proper kiss, then demonstrate exactly what he meant.

Whatever.

Sean’s a big boy. He can handle it. 

Besides, saving one of his best friends from spending the rest of his life as a frog outweighs the fact that he didn’t get a boyfriend out of it.

Danton, currently sitting beside him on the couch, laughs evilly as he takes advantage of Sean’s distraction to kill his avatar on screen. 

“Rude,” Sean says. He tosses his controller onto the couch and flops into the cushions. 

“You weren’t trying very hard,” Danton tells him. “If you’re letting me win, you know, because you feel bad that I was—"

“I am _ not _letting you win,” Sean says, insulted by the mere thought. 

“Ah.” Danton raises an eyebrow. “So you just suck?”

For lack of a better comeback, Sean kicks him in the thigh. Danton grabs his ankle and _ yanks, _ and it’s all downhill from there. 

After an exuberant wrestling match, both of them fall back onto the couch, red-faced and breathless. Sean ignores the part of his mind that’s suggesting this scenario without the wrestling beforehand and shakes himself off.

“You’re so mean to me,” Sean lies, pulling a throw blanket over his face. Danton laughs at him. 

“Didn’t you hear Matt?” He grabs Sean’s knee, gives it a shake. “We’re _ besties.” _

“Not anymore,” Sean says, muffled into the blanket. “I’m revoking your bestie card, sorry.”

Danton pulls the blanket away from him, ignoring Sean’s grabby hands. He folds it neatly and puts it on the back of the couch.

“I don’t think you can do that,” Danton informs him. “Legally, you know.” He raises his hands in a _ what can you do? _gesture. 

“How disappointing,” Sean says drily. He laughs, Danton grinning at him. Sean kicks his feet up onto Danton’s lap and folds his hands behind his head. “If I’d known this best friends business was so much like marriage, I might’ve reconsidered.” 

Sean’s feet land hard against the couch cushion. He jerks upright, but Danton is gone. Only—he’s not, not really.

“Ribbit,” says the frog glumly.

“Danton,” Sean says, slowly reaching out to pick him up, “I promise I will find who is doing this to you and fix this forever, but right now I’m going to have to—"

Danton leaps off the couch, plummeting alarmingly towards the floor. Sean shrieks, alarmed, but the carpet is plush enough to cushion the landing of a small frog, and the frog hops away, zigzagging infuriatingly as Sean tries to catch him.

“Danny, it’s _ me,” _Sean pants, trying not to step on the frog as he chases him through his apartment. “I’m not going to hurt you, come on, let me change you back.”

Sean yelps as he trips over the corner of a carpet and goes flying, landing hard on the floor. He groans and cracks an eye open. 

The frog is _ right there. _

“Okay, Dan,” Sean says, one hand slowly creeping up behind the frog, “just stay _ right _there, buddy.” At the last moment, Sean grabs at him, even feels the slippery frog skin on his fingertips, but the frog evades him again and all Sean accomplishes is almost punching himself in the face.

After what feels like hours, Sean corners the frog in the bathroom. The white tile and lack of floor clutter _ should _make it easier for Sean to catch one stupid—sorry, Danton—frog.

And yet. 

Finally, Sean gives up on trying to be faster than the frog and grabs a hand towel. He gets as close as he can, then throws the towel on top of the frog. 

A lump under the towel moves. 

Sean, careful not to leave any route the frog could use to escape, gently closes his hand around the lump and lifts it up to eye level. The instant a little green nose pokes its way out, Sean leans forward and kisses it.

Trying to be less panicky than last time, Sean lays the towel out on the floor as the frog starts to glow.

Sean looks back in time to see Danton awkwardly trying to cover himself with the hand towel.

“Sorry,” Danton says. “I didn’t mean to run away. You’re very scary from a frog’s perspective.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sean says. “Sorry for almost smothering you with a towel.”

They both smile sheepishly. 

“Hey, Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“You think I could borrow some pants?”

3.

Once they realize that the first hex wasn’t just one isolated incident, Danton lets the rest of the team, the coaching staff and front office know. Most of them already seem to have some understanding of the situation, thanks to the guys who were there the first night being gossips, so none of them are really that surprised. 

The knowledge that it could happen again and without warning seems to bother people more. Could it happen during a game? During media? What if someone tries to check him and he changes, and the other guy skates—

Well. 

Needless to say, everyone is pretty on edge when Danton’s around. 

Coach starts playing him less. The guys glare threateningly at any opposing player who gets a little too close to him. Everyone is trying to find cursebreakers, but there aren’t as many as there used to be, and few enough specialize in this kind of hex. 

Sean can tell that Danton’s getting pretty tired of it.

“Like, I’m not made of glass,” Danton complains.

He’s on the bench with Sean, watching the defensemen run their drills. Sean takes a sip of water.

“No, but you might turn into a frog at any second,” Sean says. “Frogs are a lot more vulnerable to skate blades than glass, I think.”

Danton makes a face. Sean knocks their knees together, wishing they weren’t in their pads and he could feel it properly. It’s about comforting Danton, not fulfilling any of Sean’s cornball fantasies.

“It freaks me out,” Danton admits. “I don’t like being alone anymore, because I’m too scared of what’ll happen if I change when I’m by myself. Even when I go to the bathroom.”

Sean laughs, startled and unable to help himself. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Not funny.”

Danton rolls his eyes. 

“But it’s, like, what if I fall in the toilet? Or change in the shower and can’t climb out of the bathtub? I don’t know how long frogs can go without food, and I don’t know how long it’d take for someone to find me.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” Sean says. He feels a little shamed that he _ hasn’t _thought about it as much, but he’s also not the one turning into a frog.

“Someone has to,” Danton says drily. “There are only a couple guys on this team who I trust to think about this properly, so.”

“Bergy and Z?” Sean guesses, because _ duh. _

“And _ you, _dumbass.” Danton elbows him, smiling. He considers it. “But mostly Bergy and Z, yeah."

“Ha,” Sean says, and before he can say anything more eloquent, Danton jumps the boards and skates off. Sean stares at his back. “Oh.” 

After skate, Sean puts his gear back into his stall while Danton strips for his shower.

“You know,” Sean says, kicking a socked foot against Danton’s bare ankle, “I don’t mind being your princess, or whatever.”

“‘Or whatever,’ huh?” Danton says. He shakes his head, sweaty hair falling over his forehead. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Danton gets up, towel around his waist, and bows mockingly to Sean. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness.”

Sean sticks his tongue at Danton’s back as he leaves for the shower.

“Real mature,” Brandon tells him.

“Shut up,” Sean replies. 

“What the _ fuck!” _ someone screams from the showers. 

“Sean!” someone else yells.

In the middle of the showers, hopping around a discarded towel, is frog-Danton. 

“Danny,” Sean whines, “why.”

The frog does not reply. Typical.

Luckily, the frog allows himself to be picked up without leading Sean through the entire building. Or even the showers. 

Sean has a feeling his dignity might never recover if the team watched him chase a frog half-naked through the showers while trying not to slip and die on the tile. 

Sean gently strokes the frog’s back with his index finger to soothe him. He prepares to lift the frog to his mouth, then he realizes that half the team is still lurking around to watch. He frowns at them and turns around so his back is facing them.

_ Then _ he kisses the frog.

For a second, Sean thinks Danton passed out again, but then Danton grabs fistfuls of his own hair and groans. Loudly. 

“I’m _ sick _of this,” Danton whines. He makes a very strange growling-yell kind of noise. 

“Don’t concuss yourself on the tile,” Bergy advises wisely. 

Danton groans again. 

4.

When Danton changes during a game, Sean thinks that perhaps there are bigger problems than him having to kiss Danton a lot, but never when they’re both actually people. Maybe, like, life and death.

Perhaps.

All arenas are warded against certain types of magic to prevent any cheating. Not _ all _types of magic, though, and apparently the hex that’s been placed on Danton is too old to warrant any warding. 

At any rate, Sean’s on the bench when it happens. He’s just come off a tough shift, breathing hard and fumbling for his water bottle, when the entire building seems to gasp and go silent.

Sean gets an elbow in the ribs. 

There aren’t enough men on the ice. 

Sean is up and over the boards before anyone can even think about stopping him. 

“Hey, Kuraly—“ one of the refs starts, making to skate over to him.

“Do _ not _move,” Sean yells, pointing at him, and there must be something in his voice because the ref freezes right away. Sean looks desperately at his teammates who are still on the ice. Tuukka raises his stick and points to the neutral zone.

Sean is vaguely aware that every eye in the building is on him, and even more people are watching through their TVs, but Danton’s more important than confusing a few thousand people.

Finally Sean sees him, a small, greenish shape against the white ice. Sean drops to his knees, tossing his gloves aside. 

“Hey,” he says softly. Being very careful in case the frog has had time to stick to the ice, Sean picks him up and holds him close. The last thing he wants is to drop him right now. As soon as the frog is secure, Sean pretty much sprints off the ice and down the tunnel. 

There are only a few minutes left in the game. They’ll handle it.

Danton’s still shivering after he changes back, so Sean immediately wraps him in a towel, using it to rub some warmth back into him. Eventually, Danton stops shivering so much and Sean sits next to him on the bench, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“You okay?” Sean says.

“I don’t remember a lot when I’m, uh, the frog,” Danton says, “but today I just remember being scared.” 

Sean hugs him closer, ignoring the lump rising in his chest. 

“We’re going to fix this, okay?” Sean says. “I promise.” 

“Okay,” Danton agrees. He drops his head onto Sean’s shoulder. “‘m tired.”

“Me too, buddy,” Sean says, suddenly aware of the exhaustion that’s been creeping up on him for a while. He sighs. “Me too.” 

5.

The day the team finally hires a talented cursebreaker for Danton’s affliction, Danton turns into a frog _ again. _At least practice is over already. Most of the guys have gone home. 

Sean’s about to give Danton a kiss on top of the head, as usual, when somebody interrupts. 

“Excuse me,” says a woman’s voice, and Sean jumps, turning around. 

There’s nobody in the room. 

“Sorry about the projection,” the voice continues. “I didn’t want to burst in unannounced. You never know, with locker rooms. I’m Linda, the cursebreaker your team hired. I believe I know how to cure your friend. May I?”

“Uh,” Sean stammers. He clears his throat. “Please?”

The door opens, and a silver-haired woman of perhaps sixty enters the room. She seems unperturbed by the ever-present locker room funk. 

“So, this is is the patient?” Linda looks into Sean’s cupped hands. Frog-Danton squeaks. “This is a _ very _old spell,” Linda says, surprise in her voice. She smiles. “You’re lucky I specialize in old enchantments.”

“You can fix him?” Sean feels hope, warm in his chest.

“Not exactly,” Linda says. “This is an old spell. I expect it wasn’t cast on Mr. Heinen here, but in fact on one of his ancestors a very long time ago. Maybe the original curse wasn’t broken properly. Who knows? Think of this as a recessive gene.”

Sean blinks. All he really got from that was that Linda can’t fix Danton. 

“You’ve been reversing it, correct?”

“Yes,” Sean says. “It’s because I have some magic, so—"

“Oh, not at all,” Linda interrupts. “You do have some magic, but nowhere near enough that you could singlehandedly undo this curse. The spell you are using is much, much older than that. Unfortunately, you haven’t been doing it exactly right, so the curse keeps coming back.”

“You can’t mean….” Sean feels like somebody’s just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

“You didn’t figure it out?” Linda looks surprised. “Mr. Kuraly, there is only one kind of kiss powerful enough to reverse such an old and effective curse.”

“Oh, god,” Sean squeaks. 

“True love’s kiss, of course,” says Linda.

Sean feels a little like he’s going to pass out. Linda keeps talking, explaining what he’ll have to do to undo the curse permanently, but Sean hears her like he’s underwater. 

“Feel free to contact me if you have any more concerns,” Linda says. She places a card into his stiff hand and leaves without another word. 

Sean remembers that he still has a more immediate problem to deal with. He gives the frog a quick kiss and sets him on the bench.

He waits long enough for the frog to start glowing, then he bolts. 

+1. 

“Let me up, asshole.” Danton’s voice is crackly over the intercom, but Sean can tell that he’s pissed.

Sean really would rather not, because he’s trying to come to terms with Danton being his _ true love _ and everything, but he also doesn’t want Danton to be mad at him. Danton isn’t usually very _ good _at being mad, but still.

Sean lets him in.

Danton hadn’t changed before getting more than one sock on, so he’s made it over fully dressed—minus a left sock—in his own clothes. Usually not the case after his transformations. 

“Why did you leave?” Danton asks as soon as the door is shut behind him. 

“I—"

“I ran into a woman in the parking lot,” Danton says. “She asked me if you’d finished breaking the curse.” Danton sits on the couch and crosses his arms. “Want to explain?”

“The cursebreaker,” Sean says. “She found me right before I was going to change you back. She told me—she told me how to undo the curse for good.”

“Okay,” Danton says, “great. So _ do _ it.” 

“It’s not that simple,” Sean says. He sits on the opposite end of the couch, sliding back into the cushions. 

“She made it sound like you wouldn’t have had much trouble,” Danton says dubiously. “What aren’t you telling me?” 

Sometimes, Sean wishes Danton didn’t know him so well.

“It’s technically, uh, easy,” Sean says. “But.” He frowns.

“Sean?” Danton’s looking at him, concern written all over his face. “You won’t have to, like, die or anything, right? Because that’s not allowed. I’ll spend the rest of my life as a frog if I have to.”

_ “No,” _ Sean says, “nobody’s dying, just.” Sean reaches out and touches Danton’s cheek, keeping his fingers light.

“Oh,” Danton says. “For real?”

“For real,” Sean agrees. 

“Well.” Danton narrows his eyes. “Get on with it, then.” Then he flushes. “I mean, unless you don’t want to, then you—"

Sean leans forward and kisses him.

It kind of sucks, since Danton had been in the middle of speaking and Sean just kind of threw himself forward, but the instant their lips touch, Sean sees a glow from behind his eyelids. Danton brings a hand up to his shoulder and kisses back properly as the light begins to fade.

When the light is gone, Sean sits back. Danton still _ looks _the same, which is to say beautiful and wonderful and, like, kind of froggy. 

“Did it work?” Sean asks. 

“I, um.” Danton pats at his own chest. “I think so.”

“The cursebreaker could basically see the hex,” Sean says. “My magic’s not that good, but maybe—“ Sean presses a hand over Danton’s heart and focuses. He searches with thin tendrils of magic for the usual dark ball of curse-magic, but he can’t find anything. Everything in Danton’s life force feels warm and bright and perfect. “It worked,” Sean says. 

Danton smiles at him.

“Of course it did,” he says. “That always works for breaking curses.”

“Did you want to, uh, do this again sometime?” Sean asks. He fidgets a little, worrying at the hem of his shirt. 

“What,” Danton says, a fake-looking oblivious expression on his face, “break curses?” He laughs at Sean’s frown. “I’m your _ true love, _Sean. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Cool,” Sean says. He pauses to think about where he wants to go from here. “You wanna make out?”

“Fuck yeah,” Danton says, but after he tackles Sean into the cushions, they’re both laughing too hard to get anything done.

Sean doesn’t care. This is perfect, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked this silly little story... especially those of you for whom i wrote it. you know who you are <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://symphony7inamajor.tumblr.com)


End file.
